Local Cadres Confront the Supernatural: The Politics of Holy Water (Shenshui) in the PRC,

This article examines incidents in which the miracle-working properties of a source of water or other substance are discovered, thereby sparking unauthorized visits by hundreds or thousands of people to gain access to it. The article examines: the meanings of holy water and the motivations of those who set off in search for it; the sociological dimension of these quests; the extent to which such episodes were a deliberate attempt by enemies of the regime, principally redemptive religious sects (huidaomen), to sow disorder; the reaction of the authorities to outbreaks of holy water fever and the measures they took to deal with it; and what such outbreaks reveal about the nature of the local state and about popular attitudes to it in the first decade-and-a-half of the People's Republic of China. On the Double Nine festival (chongyangjie Sffl i?) of 1956 in the first district of Shunde QWiM) county in Guangdong province, relatives of Chen Yuan (W^M), accompanied by nuns and monks, went to sweep Chen's grave in Nangang (^W) village. Chen had been a fruit seller who had dispensed herbal medicine to sick people free of charge. After his death, those whom Chen had helped collected money to build him a fine tomb, which was erected in a valley through which a mountain stream flowed. In order to protect the tomb, two subterranean channels were laid to take water around the grave and to deposit it in two small pools. While the grave-sweeping was taking place, peasant bystanders drank water from the pools and commented on how delicious it tasted. Soon rumours began to circulate that the pools had magical properties. The galvanizing moment came when a young boy, tending cows in the vicinity of the tomb, had a dream in which an unknown person told him to take water from the pools to give to his sick mother. He did so and his mother was miraculously cured of a chronic illness. Thereafter, "superstitious women" from Nangang village began to visit the grave and to spread the tale that